Honor Unraveled (21 page)

“What’s this?” He pulled out a high school graduation gown. Wrapped up inside it was a diploma. “Your graduation stuff?”

“No. It’s yours,” Mandy told him.

“How did you get it?”

“The school gave it to your mom after you left that day. When you graduated. I guess the sheriff gave it to them.”

“Huh.” He picked up the rolled-up diploma. It still had the ribbon around it. He dumped the gown and paper on a nearby box and looked at the rest of the contents. A beat-up hoodie. Some old sneakers. A pair of jeans with the knees ripped out. Digging deeper, he found an old cigar box with his mother’s crappy jewelry in it. And a letter. He lifted it out of the box to look at it. His sergeant at boot camp had made him write to her. They’d all had to write one to someone back home. He’d written one to Ivy—he wrote to her every few days. Then he’d written this one to his mom because all the other guys were writing their parents. It was laughable. He knew she’d open it to search for money, not to read his words. Like he even fucking wanted to say anything to her. He turned it over, seeing the jagged tear she’d made in the envelope. The postmark showed the date in stark black print. Two weeks before she OD’d. He huffed a sound that might have been a laugh.

“These were my mom’s.”

Mandy nodded. Her face looked tense. “Her landlord dumped her stuff in the apartment’s front yard after she passed. Mom and I went over there to collect her things. Grandma and Grandpa let us store them for you.”

He looked up at Ivy. “Your mom helped?”

“She and Dad had a big fight about you. I didn’t really understand it at the time, but there was so much talk about your being dragged off to the Army and Ivy being pregnant. Soon everyone learned Dad was your dad, too. Grandma and Grandpa didn’t know until then.”

Kit felt his mouth curling up into a snarl. “But they never wanted to meet me, did they? Their bastard grandson.”

“Kit. You’d already left by then.”

“I hated you, you know, Em? You had the good life. With my dad. Clothes. Food. A big house. People who cared about you.”

Mandy didn’t say anything. Not a goddamned thing. She just looked at him with those big green eyes swimming in tears.
 

“And then I met you, and I realized you were golden. Inside and out. And I hated that I hated you.”

“I wish I’d been able to do something.”

“You did. You acknowledged me.”

“I was so proud of you. You were big, and brave, and nice. You were the kind of big brother any kid would love to have. I didn’t understand why you had a different family or why we couldn’t talk about you around Grandma and Grandpa.”

“And those outfits you gave me every year? I wanted to burn the first one you gave me. You had everything, and all my dad cared to give me was a stupid outfit. And he couldn’t even give it to me himself. I’m glad I didn’t burn ’em, though. A hundred-dollar bill was tucked in a pocket of each pair.”

“Dad didn’t put those packages together. Mom did. She loved you. And she wanted you to have something special on Christmas and your birthday.” Mandy looked over at his box. “They were fighting about you, that day Mom and I brought your mom’s things over here. Grandma suggested I stay here with them, give Mom and Dad time to work through things. That’s when they had the accident.”

“So I killed them. Great. I didn’t know.”

“No, you didn’t. Their death was an accident. The eighteen-wheeler broke an axle and hit them head on. It had nothing to do with you.”

“Except that if they hadn’t been distracted fighting about me, they might have been more aware of what was happening on the road.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe they were done fighting by then. You didn’t cause their death.”

Jesus. There really was nothing salvageable about his life. Except Casey. And he’d pretty much screwed that up, too.
 

He nodded toward the boxes. “You find what you were looking for?”

She pointed to a box at the bottom of a stack. “It’s that one.”

Kit shuffled things around and pulled out that box. “Need anything else?”

She shook her head. They started toward the door. “Kit?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

He looked back at her, but didn’t answer. She was the only one who ever did. And didn’t that just suck.

* * *

Ivy was sitting at her desk when a short knock sounded on her open door. She looked up from her desk to find Ty standing there.
 

“Hey,” he said, leaning against her doorjamb. “Busy? Feel like taking a walk?”

Ivy looked down at the papers from the diner that she was reviewing. “Sure.” She was wearing shorts and Chacos. “Should I change? Is this a hike?”

“You’re fine.”

They walked down the hall and out through the kitchen patio door. The morning was bright, the wind fairly still. Ivy looked up at Ty’s profile. She hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to him since settling in at the house, but she hadn’t sought him out either. So much had changed in the short time since he and Kit had returned. His dad had been shot; he and Eden were engaged. Ivy was happy for him.

Like Kit, Ty had changed drastically since that time he’d left Wolf Creek Bend. He’d filled out. His eyes looked less haunted. At least, they had—until now.

“What’s on your mind, Ty?”

“You and Kit.”

She shoved her hands in her pockets. “That’s really none of your business.”

“Ivy”—he looked at her—“it’s me you’re talking to. You forget I was there with you and Kit in the beginning. I remember the day he came home and told me about you. You’d think he’d discovered the sun the day you first smiled at him. He went on for hours about you. That wonder never left him.”

Ivy shut her eyes. She tried not to think of those days, but they slammed back into her mind with crystalline clarity. Kit’s mom had an apartment on the poor side of town. Much of it was subsidized housing for ranch hands. Ivy wasn’t allowed anywhere near there, but Kit sometimes brought her home with him so she could help Ty with his GED studies.

Sometimes they would sneak over to the hills behind Mandy’s house to sit and look at the lives they weren’t a part of.
 

“Remember that night we were up on Mandy’s hill?” she said. “Kit’s car wouldn’t start when I had to get home, so he hot-wired one of your dad’s to take me home?”
 

Ty nodded and smiled. “I remember.”

“I was so scared that night. Your father terrified me.”

“Yeah, join the crowd.”

“I’m glad you stayed with Kit. You know, went with him into the service.”

Again he nodded. “But we both left you. I should have stayed and dealt with my dad. I could have helped you, then.”

“No, you couldn’t have. We moved ten days after Kit graduated. There was nothing you could have done.”

“He wrote you letters. Several times a week.”

Kit had said the same thing. Ivy stopped walking. “I never got them. Not one.”

“He mailed them when he could, but of course, they were returned after a while with a stamp that said it was an invalid address. He asked Mandy to check in with you, but she was just a kid. And her parents died that summer. She had her own things to deal with.

“He didn’t let it go, though. He was obsessed with finding you and making sure you were safe. We were due to ship out after boot camp. He took leave, hopped a bus back here, only to find out you’d moved. He went AWOL getting out to Michigan, where you guys had moved to. Your dad called the cops on him, then had a restraining order put in place against him.”

“I was gone by then. I wasn’t there.” Her heart broke when she thought of Kit making that trip, hitting the brick wall of her father.

“Well, that restraining order and his AWOL jaunt got him in a lot of hot water with the Army.” Ty looked over her head, to the evergreens on the hills behind her. “That brought him—and me—to the attention of the Red Team. We were prime candidates. Two kids with no family, no one to miss us if we got killed in action. We spent a couple of years in some intensive training, then went over to Afghanistan.

“You see, there’s never been anyone else for him, Ivy. Only you. The fact that you’re here now, and he’s here, and you’re not together—it shits. You two were made for each other.”

Ivy folded her arms in front of her. She lowered her gaze to the middle of Ty’s chest. “I can’t go back—I can’t be that person again. I won’t be that person. I almost died, Ty. I almost lost Casey. I was so weak. I can’t do it.”

Ty frowned. “I don’t know what that means.” He shook his head. “I’m not asking you to be what you were; I’m asking you to give Kit another chance.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“It is that simple. Start from this point. Get to know him. Let him get to know you. If you don’t hit it off, at least you’ll have put the past to rest so you can move on. You don’t even have to be exclusive. Just date him, too.”

Ivy thought about that for a minute. “Mandy said the same thing.” They were probably right. It was a necessary step so they could both move on. She nodded. “Okay.”

“Yeah? Okay? Yes!” He hugged her, then wrapped an arm around her as they started back toward the house. He still had a bit of a limp, but it didn’t affect his long strides.

“How are things with you and Eden?”

“Great.” He smiled down at Ivy. “She’s amazing.”

Ivy nodded. “She’s nice. And she’s tough. Exactly what you needed, I think. Have you two set a date yet?”

“No. I’d like things to settle down a bit so we can get her parents to come out for the ceremony.”

“I know the girls and I would be happy to help make a special wedding day for you both. Don’t wait too long, ’kay?”

* * *

Amir pulled to a stop off one side of the road, next to a defunct diner. He didn’t know what town it was, only that it was well off the beaten track. The diner’s two-sided sign had been shot through several times. Looking down the road in either direction, he could see nothing but flat prairie and blue sky. A little ways down a dirt road behind the diner was another derelict cabin that looked as if it had once been a storefront.
 

A few trees were clustered around the cafe and around the equally empty gas station across the road. He sent his armed driver and bodyguard to take up positions on the roofs of the two main buildings in town, then he leaned against his car and waited. There was no cell phone reception; the location he’d selected was a hundred miles away from the nearest tower. He watched the shadows shift and lengthen as the sun made its slow migration across the sky. Every now and then, one of the small, puffy clouds would throw a shadow over him, the only break in the relentless summer sunshine.

He heard the rumble of bikes long before he saw the half-dozen riders coming down the road. They flew into town at a death-defying speed, coming to a stop in a semi-circle around him, kicking up a thick cloud of dust. They were a scruffy-looking group of men. Beards in some indistinct shade of gray-brown hung stiffly down their torsos. They wore red bandannas. One of the men wore a helmet. One had a braid hanging down his back as long as his beard hung down in the front. All six had the crescent moon and star tattoo inked below their left ear.
 

The group’s leader dismounted. He was a tall man, powerfully built. He wore black leather chaps over his worn jeans. He smiled as he approached. Amir held a hand out to shake. The man hooked his thumb around Amir’s and pulled him into a brief hug.

“I told you I’d see you on this side of the war.”
 

Amir returned his smile. “So you did. And so you have.”

“There’s chatter happening that I don’t like—about you, Amir.”

“And what would that be?”

“My boys are telling me that you’re dealing with our western WKB brothers.”

“I am conducting my business, as I must. I have several tons of product to move, more than any one group can handle.”

“Bullshit. We had a deal.”

“A deal that was contingent on your safe return to your country.”

The biker spread his arms. “And here I am.”

“And here I am, as well. As promised.”

“Where are the goods?”

“Your western brothers are storing it for me at their training center.”

The biker took a step closer. “So go get it, and let’s get to business.”

“In due time. Your brethren have made a compelling case for becoming my sole distributors. I understand you will be joining them for voting in their new leadership. I will make a decision then. When I see you both together, I will be better able to make a judgment about which of you will be the most capable of handling the heavy distribution needs I have.”

The biker’s brows lowered. “I lost two men because of the games you’re playing.”

“That is regrettable. And, sadly, I fear there may be many more losses before I can clearly see which region will be best for my business. If you would like to take yourself out of the running, I will understand.”

The biker put his hands on his hips, then pivoted to look at the men behind him. “No.” He smiled at Amir. “We’ll make it clear who’s your strongest partner.”